


Like we used to

by Elisexyz



Series: Used to [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Everyone Besides Emma and Neal Appears Briefly, F/M, Introspection, Neverland (Once Upon a Time), Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22913674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: She could mind her own business. She obviously won’t.
Relationships: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan
Series: Used to [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683076
Comments: 13
Kudos: 33





	Like we used to

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tumblr prompt: [“We could...take a nap together?” + Swanfire](https://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/611869607852179456/12-swanfire). This is set while they are in Neverland, after they've rescued Neal. I tagged it as canon compliant, but to be fair I don't actually remember if they spent the night all together at some point. I'm just going to pretend that they did because it's convenient for me LOL.  
>  There's a tiiiiiiny bit of Hookfire here (to the surprise of literally no one who knows me), and also some small reference to the Terrible Love Triangle, because, well, it was canonically there, so *long suffering sigh*  
>  Enjoy!

Mary Margaret is already asleep. Emma kind of envies her: crying kids are not exactly the most relaxing of soundtracks, and she gets the feeling that she will not sleep for more than two minutes straight.

At least she has enough stubbornness to fuel her all the way through Henry’s rescue anyway.

She crosses her arms more tightly, trying to get comfortable using her own shoulder as a pillow and casting a glance in her father’s direction: he’s standing around with Hook, taking the first turn to make sure that no one jumps them in their sleep. With her eyes wandering around, she inevitably ends up catching sight of Neal, sitting not too far apart from them and looking like he isn’t even _trying_ to fall asleep.

She could mind her own business.

She obviously won’t.

(It’s not like she was _actually_ going to get any sleep anyway.)

“Hey,” she says as she walks up to him, wanting to make sure to catch his attention just in case he’s lost deep enough in thought not to hear her coming.

He turns to her, looking a little lost for a moment, but eventually he smiles. “Hey.”

“So,” she sighs, sitting down next to him. “Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep?”

He raises his eyebrows, a sarcastic smile twisting his lips. “Sleep? In this place?” He snorts. “No thanks, I’ll just — I’ll stand guard.”

“David and Hook offered to take the first turn,” she points out, jerking her head in their direction. Neal’s eyes move to them, only to quickly land back on her face when she speaks again. “Come on,” she says, gently. “Let’s just — we could — take a nap together?”

She hopes that didn’t sound as massively awkward as she thinks.

Neal’s hesitance is not particularly reassuring. Awesome.

“It’s just a little nap,” she clarifies, her tone a bit defensive. _It doesn’t have to mean anything_ , she thinks, because she is pretty sure that she doesn’t _want_ it to mean anything, she just — she has just never learned how to stand by and let him brood on his own.

(It’s been ten years, but some things apparently just have the ability slide back into place without consulting anyone.)

“Come on,” she repeats, her tone a little lighter, giving him a nudge in the arm. That drags a small, impossibly fond smile out of him, as he shakes his head slightly.

“Alright,” he gives in. “Let’s take a nap.”

They move back to Emma’s original spot, getting settled arm against arm. She doesn’t allow herself to overthink before sliding down, using his shoulder as a pillow and closing her eyes for a moment.

She can still hear all the cries, tearing through her skull each passing second, but sharing the tension somehow helps. She wonders if the Lost Boys that she can hear crying are only the ones currently trapped on the island, or if she can hear the echo of the sadness of every child that ever came there. She wonders if, if she tried hard enough, she could manage to make out Neal’s voice in there.

With that possibility in mind, feeling how Neal is still a little tense against her makes her vaguely nauseous. She takes a breath, her eyes darting to Hook for a moment – he’s pointedly looking ahead, for which she is somehow grateful – and then moving up to the sky.

“So,” she says, shifting a little to take a look at Neal’s face. “I see stars. Do you have any stories to tell me about those?”

He gives her a surprised look for a moment, before realization lightens up his face and he looks up with a reminiscent smile, snorting. “Yeah, actually. Wanna hear it?”

“It’s always worked,” she shrugs, getting back to a more comfortable position.

Back when they were kids and sometimes neither of them could sleep at night, they would sit together, he’d draw her to his chest and lean back against their car and he’d start telling stories behind constellations that she’d never heard of, stories of ogres, trolls, fairies and pirates, that she sometimes wondered if he made up on the spot. Regardless, it always seemed to calm them both down eventually, letting them catch some sleep. 

“Okay, then —” he begins, shifting a little under her to get more comfortable. “That one is called the Four-Sabres Madman.”

Neal has barely started talking about this greedy pirate captain stealing from other crews and setting half the world on fire, his voice beginning to distract her from the cries still lurking in the back of her mind, when she’s startled by Hook’s sharp turn in their direction, a stunned expression on his face.

She frowns questioningly, but his eyes are not on her. Neal is looking up, she isn’t sure if deliberately or not. There’s a story there, and between Hook claiming to have taught Neal how to ‘navigate using the stars’ and a lot of his stories involving pirates — she thinks she can take a wild guess as to what is going on there.

(It’s kinda sweet, and it makes Hook seem slightly less irritating.)

“— so, the legend says that if you go to the right place and sacrifice a mermaid, with the right ritual you can get audience with the seagods, right?”

Emma snorts. “Yeah, right. Obviously,” she says, with the exact same amount of amused scepticism that coloured her voice way back when she had no idea any of that could be even remotely plausible.

Neal looks at her with so much fondness that she’s fairly sure he realized it too.

“Okay, so, he bribes a witch into performing the ritual for him, he tosses the mermaid overboard, alongside one of his own men —” Her expression must be pretty outraged, because he pauses for a moment. “Yeah, yeah, I know, he’s a bastard — still, he does get his audience. There’s this creature twenty times as big as ship, looming over them all, and this idiot has the balls make a request.”

“Probably not world peace,” she comments, shifting a little so that she can be better curled up against him.

“ _Definitely_ not world peace,” he snorts. “No, the captain asks to replace his left hand with a _sabre_. So that he’d never lose his sword in a fight ever again. Obviously, magic comes at a price, so he has to sell a piece of his soul to the seagods to get it, but hey, I guess having a sabre for a hand is _cool_ , who needs a soul anyway —”

She laughs quietly, some tension beginning to leave her body as her content smile doesn’t slip from her face. She actually doesn’t get much further into the story: the captain pillages and kills as he did before, and he decides that one sabre isn’t enough, so he gets another mermaid and another witch, and — and he probably sells another piece of his soul, though at that point Neal’s voice was already beginning to fade away.

Emma falls asleep as something in her contently sighs: _Home_.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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